Cage: a second variation

The youngest prince had gone missing and the royal city of Kyoto was in a dark mood. No one was more unhappy than three sisters who had decided that they were going to marry him. They had been fighting together for at least two years about it, and the screens in their house kept breaking when they threw one another around during epic battles.

Now they decided mark the loss of the prince by travelling together into the fields around the city to watch the fireflies.

"But where are they?" they said when they arrived. "It's the right season. Where are the fireflies?"

The fields were as dark as the inside of a hat.

"Wait. There they are. Is that a house?"

It was a tiny house. Three beads of light moved restlessly in a cage outside the front door. "Old woman," they said to the owner, who was sitting outside. "Let the fireflies loose."

She refused. "I'll keep them in this cage. That way you won't have to move your eyes so much to see them."

Impatiently and without respect, one of the younger women leaned forward and opened the cage herself.

One dot of light flew free and the first sister said --

"Oh, I don't want to be married to the prince after all."

Then another dot of light flew free and the second sister said --

"I don't want to be married to him either."

A third dot drifted away and the third sister said --

"Nor do I."

So they all went home and wrote poems to one another and the old woman was left to sigh after her lost fireflies.

Cage: a variation

The youngest prince had gone missing and the royal city of Kyoto was in a dark mood. Three sisters who were in love with him decided to cheer themselves up by travelling into the fields around the city to watch the fireflies.

"But where are they?" they said when they arrived. "It's the right season. Where are the fireflies?"

The fields were as dark as the inside of a hat.

"Wait. There they are. Is that a house?"

It was a tiny house. Three beads of light moved restlessly in a cage outside the front door. "Old woman," they said to the owner, who was sitting outside. "Let the fireflies loose."

She refused. "I'll keep them in this cage. That way you won't have to move your eyes so much to see them."

"She's blind," whispered one sister to another. "She won't see me if I --"

And with that, she reached forward and opened the cage.

One dot of light flew free, and the old woman shouted.

"My left eye!"

At that, one of the sisters saw that the old woman was the prince and that she was not truly in love with him after all.

Another dot of light flew free and the old woman shouted.

"My right eye!"

At that, a second sister saw that the old woman was the prince and that she was not truly in love with him after all.

Another dot of light flew free and the old woman shouted.

"My heart!"

At that, the third sister saw that the old woman was the prince and that she loved him truly.

All four of them returned to Kyoto.

Cage

The youngest prince had gone missing and the royal city of Kyoto was in a dark mood. Three young women who had been in love with him decided to cheer themselves up by travelling into the fields around the city to watch the fireflies.

"But where are they?" they said when they arrived. "It's the right season. Where are the fireflies?"

The fields were as dark as the inside of a hat.

"Wait. There they are. Is that a house?"

It was a tiny house. Three beads of light moved restlessly in a cage outside the front door. "Old woman," they said to the owner, who was sitting outside. "Let the fireflies loose."

She refused. "No. I'll keep them in this cage. That way you won't have to move your eyes so much."

"She's blind," whispered one of the young women to another. "She won't see me if I --"

And with that, she reached forward and freed the three dots of light from their cage.

The old woman screamed.

"My eyes, my eyes!"

Two of the dots of light flew away in one direction.

"My eyes are gone!"

The third dot of light shot away in a different direction.

"My dick!"

The old woman fell forward on her face.

"Oh, oh!" said the young women, who were not bad-hearted. They turned her over and saw that the corpse had the face of the youngest prince.

Falconry

In Persia people flew falcons. The falcons captured animals and other birds and brought them back. Their eyes were fierce. Their brains were trained towards those eyes. Everything else was almost an afterthought and operated automatically.

To make the sheikh's favourite falcon more efficient, a clever mechanist devised a third eye which he attached to the bird's forehead.

Everything in the bird's new field of vision became monumentally tiny and detailed.

The falcon lost the ability to dream, and also its appetite. It began bringing back plants instead of animals. Then it brought back clouds. Then the thoughts of people who lived in the city. Then the thoughts of people in other parts of the country. Then the thoughts of foreigners.

The sheikh put all of these things in a cage and charged the equivalent of five dollars to anyone who wanted to look at them.

This was the first zoo in that city.

After a time the falcon drowned in a thunderstorm.

The History of Transylvania and Hungary.

In 1003, Stephen of Hungary defeated Gyula the Young of Transylvania, and Transylvania was absorbed into Hungary.

In 2008, the American Kellie Pickler said that she had never heard of Hungary.

The Transylvanians laughed.

He died in 1080.

Empress Giselda wasn't the only European royal who resembled a sea creature. The King of Swabia had long feet that sloped downwards at diagonal angles like the fork of a dolphin's tail. At night he dreamed of the deep sea and the things that live there: squid, whales, crustaceans, molluscs, and fish that lure other fish to their deaths with dangling, illuminated objects. He never told anyone, afraid that they would say he was the devil.

Luxembourg, between 1038 and 1043.

Empress Giselda came to Echternach. She had huge, flat hands on her elbows. People held her hands and said, "They are like the ..." but none of them had ever seen a seal, so they didn't know the words that should have come next. "Like the flippers of a seal," they should have said. "Her hands are large and flat, like the flippers of a seal."

Now, after all these years, the sentence has been completed. Great things will come of it.

Malawi, 10 AD

She was the greatest Baroque sculptor the world would ever know, but she was born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and of the wrong sex. Her life ended as fruitlessly as it had begun.